"It means there will be so much we can't do," an employee of one of the affected titles said. "[Before] there was news that other papers couldn't do but we could."

Searches for Beijing News and Beijing Times on Sina's popular microblogging service appeared to be blocked. One journalist who posted about the change received a message from the service ordering him to delete the post or lose his account.

Previously, the papers were overseen by state level propaganda authorities. Journalists fear the switch may also restrict their ability to cover events in the capital and sensitive news from other areas.

The South China Morning Post said a group of officials headed by Lu Wei, the deputy chief of the municipal publicity department, told Beijing News reporters that the move was intended to make the paper more influential.

They denied rumours of a crackdown and said its editorial policies and senior staff would remain the same, although many employees on the two papers are expecting changes.

"It's been a headache for the Beijing propaganda authorities that they didn't directly control the two newspapers," Wen Yunchao, a Hong Kong-based media analyst, told the South China Morning Post.

"They could only influence editorial content through the help of the central publicity department."

Wen said it was unclear what would happen to cross-regional reporting, but predicted "instant results" in reducing negative coverage of local news.

Others thought changes might not be obvious at first, suggesting that officials' main aim was to rein in reporting on sensitive topics such as the Wenzhou crash.

Mainstream media – including state-owned newspapers and television stations – ran strikingly tough coverage of the disaster, questioning safety standards and the way officials handled the aftermath.

When censors clamped down on reporting, the Beijing News ran a front page article about a precious ceramic dish at the Forbidden City breaking into six pieces. Although it was a true story, it was widely read as an oblique reference to Wenzhou, where six carriages were derailed.

The paper has faced intense pressure from authorities in the past, notably in 2005 when dozens of staff walked out after the chief editor, Yang Bin, was sacked.